BritBlog Roundup # 8

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends, we’re so glad you could attend....well, yes, quite enough Emerson Lake and Palmer there I think. The eighth issue of the Britblog Roundup is upon us, an attempt to highlight what is good and interesting in the plethora of blog postings by natives and residents of the four nations that make up these Isles. All the good stuff is sent in by readers to britblog AT gmail DOT com (and of course, all ommissions and errors are my fault) and you can start looking for entries for next week right now and send them in.

We also have a new way for you to keep in touch, a yahoo group (yes, I know, amazing that someone who remembers ELP from the first time around can manage that. I had help, honest.) I’m told that if you send an email to this address: [email protected] then you will get an email from me towards the end of the week reminding you to send in entries and also one on a Sunday/Monday giving the URL of the roundup. Yahoo’s computers are idling cycles as they wait for the hordes to sign up!

The two big news stories were of course the Pope’s death and funeral and the announcement of the General Election. Don’t be too surprised that those two make up the bulk of the entires.

First up is something from me, not a blog post but a recommendation for an entire blog. If you want to keep up with the polls on how the parties are doing you need to be reading Anthony Wells. An expert in the field doing what he does best, interpreting the technicalities so that dimbos like me can grasp what is actually going on. The other way to look at this is via Political Betting. Such markets have been known to be remarkably accurate in the past, people risking their own money often providing a better picture than those telling pollsters what they think they might want to hear.

British Spin tells us why he will be voting Labour, having converted from a radical to a gradualist.

Socialism in an Age of Waiting overviews the (ex-) Pope and his importance (or not) in the scheme of things.

Chris Lightfoot does more of his whizzy programming and provides an interesting graphical way of looking the current positions of the parties.

PooterGeek bemoans the problems of blogging....not just not wanting to write about things he doesn’t know about but not being able to write about things he does know about.

Via Pooter, a great little site and tool. This isn’t blogging but we’ll all find it terribly useful. A database of standard rate telephone numbers so that we don’t have to pay the premium rates to whine about the crap someone’s sold us.

Murkee is sound on the inequalities and inequities of our voting system, overviews the internet sites of the main campaigns, and also points to Boris Johnson’s blog article (yes, I know, the MP and Editor of the Spectator, as if he doesn’t get enough attention) on the bias in the electoral system. Compares it to Zimbabwe which seems a bit much, but only a bit.

Steve Guy plays with one of the tools on the BBC site and shows quite how unfair the electoral system is. I have to admit I’m not 100% certain that it is all FPTP that is to blame, I think single member constituencies mean something too.

The English Progessive and Liberty Party has a two minute film that you might want to see.

Johnny Billericay provides an alternative view of the week’s news.

BackingBlair lists the terms on which they would be willing to urge people to vote Labour. Fairly short list really.

Norm of that Blog asks you to imagine what Iraq would be like now if there had not been the war.

Nick Barlow takes issue with the "Vote Lib Dem, get the Tories" argument. Nick’s also one of those behind the General Election blog which seems to be shaping up nicely. A number of well known UK bloggers are contributing.

Phil tries to predict the election result and also looks at the arrest and charging of Nick Griffin, head of the British National Party. I quite agree, odious scum the BNP may be, but the date of the charges being laid seems highly political.

Paul Coletti has an interesting take on the conviction of one of the top spammers, Jeremy Jaynes. Once we’ve found out which jail he’s in, sign him up for every piece of mail order junk we can.

Mark reports in on a different level of politics, the National Students Union (where does the apostrophe belong there? students? student’s? students’?). An interesting blog to have a wander around that one.

Peter Black points out that Robert Mugabe is actually employed by Candid Camera. Explains a lot, that.

The Yorkshire Ranter is spot on about the collapse of Rover. The Phoenix guys outwitted by their own chicanery.

The Pseudo Magazine approaches the "Did John Paul Topple Communism" meme in a manner both amusing and justly weighed.

Tom Fuller recommends two blogs that he’s involved with, Ideal Government and his personal site. Tom’s an American living in England (and thus eligible for this roundup) but the aim is for you to recommend posts, not blogs. But we’ll let him in anyway, as we all know, Yanks tend not to read the instruction booklets

The Cross of St George has the tale of the burglar arrested after he appeared on TV...no, it wasn’t Crimewatch.

The Future is a Foreign Country digs up and then demolishes a letter from an exceedingly patrician eurocrat.

Sortapundit provides a statistical analysis of Instapundit. Nothing wrong found, just an appreciation of quite how limited the number of links is....and this of one of the best blogs for linking out to others. Matches with my starting this Roundup, there’s no way I’m ever going to read all of the great blogs out there, I need your help to direct me to what you think is good.

Anoneumouse nominates Neil Herron. A truly great post, one of the ankle biters snapping at the authorities, something so necessary to the continued health of our democracy. A must read.
He also, less kindly, nominates all posts by Toby at Straight Banana since February 22st. This joke will only work until Toby’s next post.

Actually Existing is only a few weeks old but already has a number of interesting things on tactical voting ...rather like the Backing Blair guys, get rid of Tone even at the expense of voting Tory.

David at Carbarfeidh is less than enamoured of some of the instructions being handed out to teachers. Encouraging stuff from a trainee (second career) teacher....with children’s rights come children’s responsibilites.

 A Plague of Opinion (great name eh?) is also on the election beat.The actual differences between the three major parties are such that we are really in a one party, managerialist state.

Martin Stabe points to Jim at Our Word is Our Weapon with three related posts. I think that the politest thing that Jim and I might say about each other’s prejudices opinions Bayesian priors is that the other is wrong, moving swiftly downwards, but I will admit that this is fact checking of the first order. That’s what this is about, what is good, not what do I agree with. I reserve that for the other 98% of the blog.

And that’s it, this week’s Britblog Roundup. Entries for next week to britblog AT gmail DOT com and sign up at yahoo groups ([email protected]) for reminders for entries and to get the weekly URL (lovingly handcrafted from recycled electrons) sent to your inbox.

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